Have You Seen This Cinderella (French?) Stamp?

I recently received a Jeanne D'Arc Chatelaine Carnet de Bal "Dance Card" as a gift, and I found a unique French postage stamp inside. It is bluish-green, with the profile of Marianne* (*not confirmed) in front of rays (consisting of line art) with scalloped perforations. A black over-print says "La Francaise" and below, "VALEUR 25 TIMBRE à 0.20"

Other stamps I am seeing online that have similar art style, color, and printing, seem to be in the late 1800s. And although this particular design is reminiscent of Jules-Auguste Sage, it does not reflect his line art shading in the face, and also the art I found by him online didn't have the Slinky(tm) border that my stamp has on it.

The denominational over-print is not something I have been able to find, aside from a geographical mark for the French Colonies. Further, the perforation capability didn't exist until 1847, and France doesn't seem to have adopted it before 1870. This is all the information I have so far.

Interesting item, Starcat. Try changing your title to include the word "France". Perhaps that will catch the eye of our French specialists.

Cheers!

Brian

Very interesting!





And now for my completely random idea (please do NOT take this to be true... It's just a thought) - Could it be that instead of a postage stamp this is a seal of some kind from a dealer? (the lettering [according to google translate] reads "The French estimate 25 stamps") so perhaps it was used to seal an envelope of approx. 25 french stamps costing 0.20?

Right! I had a thought like that too. "Value 25 Stamps" is what Google told me. So, 25 stamps each worth .20? How can I research that, I wonder? "Stamp stamp" ...? =D

I see nothing in the standard Scott catalogue. Either it's something specialized that's not covered in Scott, or it's a private printing and would be considered a Cinderella.

Interesting- Now if you add cinderella to the title there is definatly some keen eyes to take a look. Odd we don't see alot of post on France or maybe I usually don't read them.

The folks at StampBoards.com are convinced it is not a postage stamp at all, but all the poste, telephone, telegraph, and tax stamps around that time were labeled as such. I was thinking maybe a revenue stamp, but I haven't found anything to back that up.

I do know that woman is definitely the Marianne.  She's wearing a "Phrygian cap".  

And I found this on Wiki:
"On 17 March 1848, the Ministry of the Interior of the newly founded Second Republic launched a contest to symbolise the Republic on paintings, sculptures, medals, money and seals, as no official representations of it existed. Two "Mariannes" were authorised. One is fighting and victorious, recalling the Greek goddess Athena: she has a bare breast, the Phrygian cap and a red corsage, and has an arm lifted in a gesture of rebellion. The other is more conservative: she is rather quiet, wearing clothes in a style of Antiquity, with sun rays around her head—a transfer of the royal symbol to the Republic—and is accompanied by many symbols (wheat, a plough and the fasces of the Roman lictors). These two, rival Mariannes represent two ideas of the Republic, a bourgeois representation and a democratic and social representation – the June Days Uprising hadn't yet occurred."

...So that is very interesting, and begs the question whether a stamp issued by the French would refer to themselves as "LA Francaise", or "THE French", and why that and the denomination are both variable overprints.

Does anyone know what it is called when there is a little blank box specifically for an overprint?